Jove, $7.99, ISBN 0-515-12854-6
Paranormal Romance, 2000

Well, I am dragged, screaming and kicking, back to Ye Irish Faire Paradise, and I must (sheepishly) say that I have a better trip this time around. It’s the music. Ms Roberts adds in the beauty and lyrical eroticism of Irish music into this romance, and I can’t help but to be charmed.

Too bad about the romance, though, which is bland and tepid.

First, the plot. Shawn Gallagher, the second perfect Irish stud, is being set up to marry old friend Brenna O’Toole. Both make wonderful music apart, but what happens when they do a duet? Brenna is sure that Shawn would never love a “not pretty” babe like her, but hey, why not ask him for an Irish boink anyway? Shawn likes the idea – a lot – and after a few chapters later, he realizes he’s in love with her. But she is too obtuse to know that, because honey, we all know Irish women have pride and fire, and they like their men begging.

Meanwhile some ghostly lady make an appearance, the Gallaghers set up a theater, the elder brother hands over the pub to a reluctant Shawn, and what else? Oh, Brenna, for all her clueless pride mule act, is a great at fixing cars and stuff.

Thing is, I don’t know. I really like the incorporation of music. And the ghost and faerie prince fellow aren’t as annoying as they are in the first book. And yes, Tears of the Moon is a readable – if typically Nora Roberts-ish – one.

But what’s with the romance, people? Gosh, no wonder so many things have to happen in this story, because if taken by itself, the romance can barely fill a Silhouette Desire anthology. The chemistry is absent, the hero is bland, the heroine is clueless, and the “sexy banter” falls flat (let me just say that he criticizing her dress and hair and she firing back isn’t my idea of verbal foreplay).

Where has all the magic gone?